This long and snowy season has been tough for municipalities across the Capital Region, yet none have struggled like Troy.

There have been complaints about unplowed roads and sidewalks all winter, but the most recent storm left some neighborhoods buried for days, making the city a punch line on talk radio and social media.

Much of the problem rests with Troy's weird reluctance to call snow emergencies, and Rosamilia hesitated to call one after the latest storm. It took six days — why rush? -— before the mayor enacted a quasi snow emergency that required residents to remove cars from a few select streets.

Better late than never, perhaps, but the rollout wasn't smooth.

Mistake No. 1: Cars had to be off the streets by 7 a.m., but the signs making that clear were put out only the evening before.

Mistake No. 2: The signs weren't orange or red or another color that would have garnered attention. Instead, the city went with white, meaning they were nicely camouflaged by the snow that was the very reason for the emergency.

The result was predictable: "They were towing away cars — and lots of them," said Grace Bashford, a longtime Lansingburgh resident who just barely managed to save her vehicle.

But not to worry. Snow removal in Troy was a disaster for this big storm, sure, but Rosamilia vowed to improve. Displaying the kind of immediate and decisive action that wows voters, his administration announced it would have a perfectly fine snowstorm plan in place by next winter.

Wait ... what? Next winter?! What about the rest of this winter? What if it snows again?

And shouldn't Troy have had a plan in place, you know, before this year's storms?

In fairness to Rosamilia, Troy's winter difficulties didn't start with him. The city, with narrow and hilly streets that are tricky to plow, has long had a let-it-melt attitude about snow removal.

Rosamilia isn't the only mayor who's slipped in this winter's powder. In Atlanta, for example, Mayor Kasim Reed faced withering criticism after two inches of snow resulted in traffic mayhem.

Closer to home, New York City's Bill de Blasio took incoming snowballs from residents of the Upper East Side, before angering the usually unflappable Al Roker. The former contended that the class-conscious mayor intentionally left their wealthy streets unplowed, while Roker was irked when de Blasio blamed low-quality meteorology for his decision to keep schools open during a massive snowstorm.

It's one thing, though, if Atlanta and New York City come unhinged during winter storms, but we live upstate, where defeating snow is supposed to be a point of pride. Troy's struggles are making us all look bad.

"Why is this the only municipality that hasn't been able to figure this out?" asked Jim Gordon, who represents Lansingburgh on the Troy City Council. "Having no contingency plan for big snowstorms is mind boggling."

No doubt, it's been an especially difficult winter, so voters would probably forgive Rosamilia's failure to clear the streets. The problem, though, is that the Democrat is being blown around by all the other storms that are battering the city, including the contentious aftermath of a melee at the Kokopellis bar that drew use of force by police.

In situation after situation, Rosamilia seems too much like a passive observer and too little like a leader who's shaping the course of events. I won't say the mayor's asleep at the wheel, but he certainly seems to be daydreaming.

That's allowing all the good things that are happening in the city — and there are many — to suffocate under an avalanche of bad publicity.

Is it fair to blame a politician for a snowstorm? Probably not.

But when snow on the streets becomes symbolic of broader problems ... well, that's when mayors get buried.